Method and Apparatus For Obtaining Digital Objects In A Communication Network

ABSTRACT

A technique for obtaining digital objects (such as songs or video clips) from information providers in data communication networks (such as the Internet); the digital objects being sent through channels (such as Internet radio channels or Internet TV channels) or being otherwise made available. The end-user gains several advantages over techniques supported by the known art. For example, end-users may; easily locate desired digital objects, need not be connected during object capture, can be connected through a low speed connection, does not have to have a high capacity computer, can obtain digital objects legally, can receive supplemental information associated with the digital objects, can quickly scan a vast number of digital object having been sent earlier, need not have the required storage space for the digital objects available during object capture, can easily navigate through a multitude of digital object channels, can easily obtain objects with a certain desired quality, can easily obtain objects in a certain desired format, can legally obtain digital objects at no cost and can prove that the digital objects were actually obtained legally.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application asserts priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 60/886,026, entitled “Method andApparatus for Obtaining Digital Objects in a Communication Network,”filed Jan. 22, 2007, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus forobtaining digital objects in a communication network. More specifically,the invention relates to a communication system, which connects to aprivate or public data communication network (such as the Internet) andprovides end-users a means to obtain digital objects (such as audio andvideo clips). In many jurisdictions the recording of digital objectsemanating from certain sources (e.g. Internet radio stations and TVbroadcasters) is fully legal as opposed to file-sharing, the later beinga wide spread phenomena today.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present evolution of data-communication is such that more and moreusers are gaining access to the Internet worldwide. Internet has becomea source of knowledge, but also a marketplace for business; attractingmore and more users. Currently, there is significant pressure on thedata-communications industry to provide solutions that allow everyone togain access to Internet. Broadband solutions are continuously beingdeveloped; both local as well as national access networks have beenplanned and launched. Users are connecting to the Internet via variousconnection types such as fibre channels, cable TV lines, xDSL, Ethernet,GSM, UMTS, WiFi and satellite systems.

Numerous information providers are present on the Internet providing allkinds of services. The vast amount of information objects has lead tothe fact that specific search engines are used by virtually all Internetusers to be able to locate relevant information objects. For static andsemi-static content on the Internet, there are several search enginesavailable (e.g. Google and Yahoo) that provide comprehensive coverageover large parts of the Internet. However, currently, there is nosuccessful method to navigate through streaming media. There is nouniform way to search the streams and by their nature they are volatile.

Seemingly ubiquitous human behaviour, not wanted in the real world, suchas theft, blackmail, sabotage and violations of immaterial product andcopyright rights, has spread throughout the Internet community.Currently there exists a huge debate amongst producers and consumers ofdigital media and amongst law enforcement organizations. Major concernstouch on what is considered legal or moral when it comes to the means ofobtaining music and films.

Users on the Internet are facing a number of problems when they areabout to retrieve digital objects from the net. For example, users thatare looking for music face at least the following difficulties: it isnot easy to locate a certain song, the song may not have the requiredquality, the song may cost money, the format of the song must becorrect, the song may not be available instantly, the retrieval of thesong may require that the users communication device is on and connectedto the Internet, the communication device must have sufficient storagespace available, the legal status of the song may be uncertain, the songmay not be transferable to other devices (e.g. mp3 players). The same istrue for other types of media such as video, text and data.

A couple of products and services have attempted to solve these problemsbut have been unable to fully provide users the ability to navigate andbrowse the vast amount of content available on modern networks such asthe Internet. One of these services is Video-on-Demand (VOD). VODservice provides a selection of media files for a user to browse over adedicated connection, such as a cable network. Unfortunately, the mediafiles available to users must be pre-determined by the service providerand pre-loaded into the service provider's dedicated servers. Thisforces the VOD user into a drastically limited selection of files toview. Further, this only allows the VOD user to view files on the VODsystem's dedicated device, such as a cable box, and on the dedicatedsystem; a user cannot view the files outside of that system.

A second product that has tried to solve consumers' need for unfetteredaccess to media is the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). One of the wellknown DVR products is the Tivo. These products allow a user to schedulea recording of a TV show in advance, and allow the user to use VCR-likefunctions when watching that show (e.g., pause, rewind, fast forward).Some cable companies have considered locating these DVRs in a centrallocation at the cable company. Unfortunately, DVR technology suffersfrom serious disadvantages. First, DVRs, like VOD services, are limitedto the content available on the dedicated connection those DVRs receive(e.g., satellite or cable networks). A DVR cannot actively seek out newforms of media beyond what is predetermined to be available by thededicated service provider; not to mention being able to browse theofferings of multiple service providers. Second, DVRs are individuallyowned and managed, in that they require excessive bandwidth in order tooperate for a vast user network. For example, if X users want to recorda specific program, X connections to the media are required on thededicated connection; this is the case regardless of location of theDVR. Third, DVRs are only able to operate because off of schedulinginformation the DVR receives well in advance of the scheduled recording;information that many content providers on the internet do not or cannotprovide in such a manner.

Data aggregation services have also been developed. These services, someof which rely on the RDF Site Summary (RSS) feed, allow a user toreceive updates or summaries of information presented on the Internet.RSS services are predominantly used in the context of blogs and newssites, where a user only wants to see new information. Unfortunately,while an RSS feed may be able to present updates to a previouslysubscribed news service or blog to a user, RSS technology is not able tosearch and aggregate media from providers unknown to the RSS user. Thisis because the RSS user must set-up the RSS feed to connect directly toa provider before that feed can have any effect. Another disadvantage isthat the content provider must enable RSS technology on the server-sideof the connection in addition to the client. Many content providers areeither unable or unwilling to allow this kind of access to theircontent. Further, similar to the DVR product, bandwidth issues crop upin that an RSS feed is delivered to each user individually.

Applicants have identified that there are several problems in thepresent way of accessing the Internet and searching for specific digitalobjects and subsequently obtaining them because of several reasonsdescribed above and hereunder. Several novel solutions have been devisedto overcome these problems.

Other problems and drawbacks also exist.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one embodiment, the invention comprises a system and methodfor receiving a request for a media object, searching one or moreundedicated media streams, locating the media object on an undedicatedmedia stream, recording a copy of the media object from the undedicatedmedia stream, and making the copy available to a remote user. Thevarious embodiments may allow the user to be disconnected from thesystem while recording takes place.

The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatus forobtaining digital objects in a communication Network. More specifically,the invention relates to a communication system, which connects to aprivate or public data communication network (such as the Internet) andprovides end-users a means to obtain digital objects (such as audio andvideo clips). In many jurisdictions the recording of digital objectsemanating from certain sources (e.g. Internet radio stations and TVbroadcasters) is fully legal as opposed to “file sharing”, the laterbeing a wide spread phenomena today.

When the present invention is implemented, a user may enter searchcriteria, such as song or artist, and then just wait for a while and alegal recording of a song will be obtained automatically. In variants ofthe invention, the user does not even have to be connected to theInternet during the search and retrieval of the song. This allowsend-users a convenient way of obtaining legal copies of music. Theinvention is not restricted to just music. Instead, end-users may obtaina multitude of different media types such as audio, video, data andtext.

The present invention is in no way limited to the Internet or itscurrent state. All the methods and apparatus may be applied in otherdata communication networks providing communication means between two ormore distinct places. In fact, one would expect that the currentinvention would suit even better in future communication systems withhigher bandwidths and more information providers.

The present invention has numerous benefits and advantages. Theinvention provides an efficient and effective to search the vast amountof media streams available on the Internet. It also allows users to finddigital objects that comport with legal principles of the users'jurisdictions.

Other benefits and advantages of the invention will be apparent to theperson of ordinary skill in the art.

Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to overcome oneor more of the aforementioned and other limitations of existing systemsand methods for media presentation inherent those systems.

It is another object of the invention to provide a system and method forproviding legal way to find media on the Internet.

It is yet another object of the invention to provide a media browsingsystem that is simple to use and time-efficient for the user.

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a furtherunderstanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitutepart of this specification, illustrate several embodiments of theinvention and, together with the description, serve to explain theprinciples of the invention. It will become apparent from the drawingsand detailed description that other objects, advantages and benefits ofthe invention also exist.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth inthe description that follows, including the figures, and in part will beapparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of theinvention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will berealized and attained by the system and methods, particularly pointedout in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appendeddrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The purpose and advantages of the present invention will be apparent tothose of skill in the art from the following detailed description inconjunction with the appended drawings in which like referencecharacters are used to indicate like elements, and in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates a communication system where a number of differentcommunication networks and nodes are interconnected according to thecurrent state of the art;

FIG. 2 illustrates a more detailed communication system where a numberof different communication networks and nodes are interconnectedaccording to the current state of the art;

FIG. 3 illustrates a communication system where a number of differentcommunication networks and nodes are interconnected according to thecurrent state of the art;

FIG. 4 illustrates a detailed communication system according to oneaspect of the invention where a number of different communicationnetworks and nodes are interconnected according to variants of thepresent invention;

FIG. 5 illustrates a detailed communication system according to oneaspect of the invention where a number of different communicationnetworks and nodes are interconnected according to variants of thepresent invention;

FIG. 6 illustrates a detailed communication system according to oneaspect of the invention where a number of different communicationnetworks and nodes are interconnected according to variants of thepresent invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates a communication system according to various aspectsof the invention with user interaction with the system;

FIG. 8 illustrates a communication system according to various aspectsof the invention with user interaction with the system;

FIG. 9 illustrates a communication system according to variants of theinvention with user interaction with the system;

FIG. 10 illustrates a detailed communication system according to oneaspect of the invention where a number of different communicationnetworks and nodes are interconnected according to variants of thepresent invention

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to . . . .

Definitions

In order to simplify the description below, several definitions are madehereunder:

End-User Properties (Hereafter Denoted EUP)

According to various aspects of the invention, an end-user's propertiesmay be constituted by any combination and/or permutation of one orseveral properties, including but not limited to; a system uniqueidentifier (id), her real name, date of birth, gender, body size(s)(e.g. length, waist), citizenship, location, country where she lives,preferred language(s), installed program(s), program settings, preferredway(s) of conveying obtained digital objects (e.g. e-mail, IM address,web, local storage), alias name, password, picture(s) depicting herself,presentation picture(s) (not necessarily constituting the appearance ofthe end user), instant messaging (IM) address(es), IP address(es), MACaddress, TCP/UDP port address(es), device type(s), browser useragent(s), operating system(s) used, willingness to receive ads, cookiesand/or content stored by browser user agents, GUID number (e.g.{3F2504E0-4F89-11D3-9A0C-0305E82C3301}), e-mail address, phone number,zip/postal code, encryption keys(s), last login date and/or time, MSISDN(for wireless devices), time zone on the user's current location, timezone on the user's home location, content stored at a database at theusers premises.

Digital Object Channel Properties (Hereafter Denoted DOCP)

According to various aspects of the invention, a Digital ObjectChannel's properties (or short a “channel”) may be constituted by anycombination and/or permutation of one or several properties, includingbut not limited to; a system unique identifier (id), a station name, adigital coding type (DCT as described below), a maximum number of usersthat may connect to the digital object channel, the current number ofusers currently connected to the digital object channel, an indicationof the technology and/or hardware used to provide the channel (e.g.number of CPUs, Memory size, use of cluster technology, netcommunication throughput), indication of presence of commercialinformation in the channel, current digital object being transmitted, adescription of the channel transmission properties, the currentbit-rate, the maximum bit-rate, the average bit-rate, the use of errorcorrection, the communication protocol(s) used to convey digital objects(CP as described below), a rank of the channel's popularity, the genreof digital object being transmitted (e.g. rock, pop, disco, news TV), adescription of the probability for certain digital objects to appear inthe stream (e.g. morning news, music, “Beatles”=2%), a description ofthe author of the current digital object being provided in the channel,a description of the performer(s) in the current digital object beingprovided in the channel (e.g. artist), a description of the name of thecurrent digital object being provided in the channel (e.g. song name), aURL associated with the channel (e.g. a homepage of the channel orchannel provider), a communication descriptor used to initiate achannel, an Internet address used to initiate a channel, an IP numberused to initiate a channel, a port address used to initiate a channel,an encryption key needed to initiate a channel, a password needed toinitiate a channel, a know secret needed to initiate a channel, apicture associated with the channel, an indication of the legality ofobtaining and/or storing objects sent in the channel, the time when thechannel is active, time zone where the channel is produced, any set ofparameters describing digital rights or restrictions a user might havewhen storing or playing Digital Objects emanating from the channel (e.g.DRM)

Service Provider Properties (Hereafter Denoted SPP)

According to various aspects of the invention, a Service Provider'sproperties may be constituted by any combination and/or permutation ofone or several properties, including but not limited to; a system uniqueidentifier (id), its country of registration, its digital objectchannel(s) (said DOCP(s)), its legal jurisdiction, its name, its legalname, its registration identity, picture(s) depicting its logo,presentation picture(s) (not necessarily constituting the appearance ofthe service provider's logo), instant messaging (IM) address(es), IPaddress(es), MAC address, TCP/UDP port address(es), e-mail address,phone number, zip/postal code, encryption keys(s), time zone on theservice provider's location.

Note that, in some of the various embodiments and aspects, a said DOCPcan be described also as a said SPP (since the latter may contain one orseveral DOCPs).

Digital Object Properties (Hereafter Denoted DOP)

According to various aspects of the invention, a digital object'sproperties may be constituted by any combination and/or permutation ofone or several properties, including but not limited to; a system uniqueidentifier (id), its title, date of creation, time of creation, contenttype (e.g. MIME:audio/mp3), URL, land of creation, author, artist(s),language(s), alias name, picture(s) depicting it, picture(s) depictingan album on which the digital object was released, presentationpicture(s) (not necessarily constituting the appearance of the digitalobject), copyright holder, copyright existing flag, protection flag,content (e.g. the digital object content, for example the actual soundin an audio clip), checksum, digital signature, pointer to originaldigital object, album title, track number, genre (e.g. blues, rock,classical), lyrics, comments, duration, bit-rate, audio channels, objectcoding, audio coding, video coding, audio sample rate, video frame rate,image width, image height, image resolution, compression method,encryption method, encryption key, sample depth (e.g. bits), textcoding, thumbnail picture, extraction of audio, extraction of video, itsDOT (as defined below), any set of parameters describing digital rightsor restrictions a user might have when storing or playing/rendering theDigital Object (e.g. DRM)

Digital Object Types (Hereafter Denoted DOT)

According to various aspects of the invention, digital objects canrepresent a plurality of different media types constituted by anycombination and/or permutation of one or several media types, includingbut not limited to; audio, video, pictures, stock information, news,text, digital documents, tv, weblog (blog), podcast, web pages, orsimilar and/or derivates of these media types. The digital object typecan be coded and/or tagged in many ways, including the MIME format.

Communication Protocols (Hereafter Denoted CP)

According to various aspects of the invention, digital objects can beconveyed using a plurality of different communication protocolsconstituted by any combination and/or permutation of one or severalcommunication protocols, including but not limited to; streaming mediaprotocols, RTP, ftp, http, https, RSS, SMTP, e-mail, instant messaging(IM), NFS, SMB, remote file system protocols, tcp, udp, Ipv4, Ipv6, SIP,DVBT, DAB, CEPT, BitTorrent, Fast Track, Direct Connect, Gnutella andeDonkey, mms, or similar and/or derivates of these communicationprotocols.

Digital Coding Types (Hereafter DCT)

According to various aspects of the invention, digital objects can becoded using a plurality of different coding formats constituted by anycombination and/or permutation of one or several communicationprotocols, including but not limited to; mp3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3),AAC, AAC+, Ogg Vorbis, mp2, mp3PRO, AC-3, ATRAC, QDesign, AMR-WB+,RealAudio, speex, CELP, zip, mpg2, mpg4, pcm, XML, Flash, FLAC, Monkey'saudio, SHN, TTA, WavPack, Apple Lossless, AIFF, AU, WAV, G.711, G.722,G.722.1, G.722.2, G.723, G.723.1, G.726, G.728, G.729, G.729.1, G.729a,Microsoft Windows Media file format, WMA, BMP, GIF, ILBM, PCX, PNG, TGA,TIFF, WMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG-LS, JBIG, JBIG2, MPEG-, MPEG-2, MPEG-4,MPEG-4/AVC, H.261, H.262, H.263, H.264, AVS, Bink, Dirac, Indeo, MJPEG,RealVideo, VC-1, Theora VP6, VP7, WMV, 3GP, ASF, AVI, FLV, Matroska,MP4, MXF, NUT, Ogg, Ogg Media, QuickTime, RealMedia or similar and/orderivates of these coding formats.

Meta-data is data associated with a digital object and can be embeddedwith the digital objects (e.g. ID3 tags in mp3 files) or can beotherwise associated with the digital object (e.g. storing informationelements in a database and associate the information elements to one orseveral digital objects or obtained from another store (such as CDDB ora web server)). For example, a meta-data information element may definethe author of a song.

Triggering

According to various aspects of the invention, the process of triggeringon a certain event will be used. In one or several variants of theinvention, the triggering process comprises the following steps:

determining a certain set of one or several search criteria (hereaftertriggering conditions) pertaining to a desired digital object or digitalobjects, the triggering condition being one or several of said DOP,DOCP, SPP, DOT, CP or DCT satisfying certain variables and relations(for example {objecttype=music, artist=“U2”, format=mp3, bitrate>64kbit/s}),

entering the triggering condition(s) set in the system,

monitoring any object properties and comparing they within thetriggering condition(s) set within the search scope (e.g. one or severaldigital object channel), the object properties being any of the saidDOP, DOCP, SPP, DOT, CP or DCT,

upon a match, inform an application in the system.

For example, if the above search criteria were entered, the system maytrigger on {song=“Sunday bloody Sunday.mp3”, format=mp3, bitrate=128kbit/s, channel=“http://station.someserver.com/rock:8000”} or{song=“one.mp3”, format=mp3, bitrate=128 kbit/s,channel=“http://station.someotherserver.com rock:4001”}.

The above process may be referred to as “triggering”, “trigger”,“triggered” or similar wording depending on language context.

The term “triggering conditions” may also referred to in this document.

It shall be noted that “triggering” may be applied such that triggeringconditions are compared to real time object properties arriving in somepart of a system but just as well, in certain variants of the invention,such that triggering conditions are compared to object properties beingstored before the triggering conditions were applied or entered (e.g.,searching for an object in a database for all the songs written by acertain author, whereby the songs were recorded in advance of thesearch).

Digital Object and/or Channel Adaptation (Hereafter DOCA)

According to various aspects of the invention, digital objects anddigital object channels over which they are sent may be handled oradapted so it may fit the end user's requirements or other requirementsbetter. This includes, but is not limited to; compression of the digitalobject such that its digital representation will be reduced in size,changing the object coding format of the digital object (from any formatin said DCT to another or same format in said DCT), changing the speedof the digital object channel (e.g. to reduce bandwidth requirements orto reduce the time to convey the digital object), changing thecommunication protocol (from any protocol in said CP to another or sameformat in said CP), changing the digital object channel properties (fromany digital object channel property in said DOCP to another or sameproperty in said DOCP), changing the service provider properties (fromany service provider property in said SPP to another or same property insaid SPP), changing the time the digital object is transmitted,splitting a digital object in several parts.

The Prior Art

FIG. 1 illustrates a communication system 10, where a number ofdifferent communication networks and nodes are interconnected accordingto the current state of the art. Several information providers havecommunication devices (e.g. servers) connected to a communicationnetwork such as the Internet. For example; service provider SP1 has acommunication device 100 that connects to a communication network 112via a communication link 103, service provider SP2 has a communicationdevice 101 that connects to a communication network 112 via acommunication link 104 and so forth until service provider SPN that hasa communication device 102 that connects to a communication network 112via a communication link 105. There are communication networks similarto 10 where N is substantially larger than 10,000.

The N communication devices of the service providers (100, 101 through102) are typically, but not necessarily, characterized by theircomparatively high computational power, data throughput, large memoryand persistent storage size, and significant robustness in terms of uptime.

The N communication links (103, 104 through 105) are typically, but notnecessarily, characterised by their comparatively high bandwidththroughput, their significant robustness in terms of up time andsupervision, and by its predictability of behaviour that remains largelyconstant over time.

Several end-users have communication devices (e.g. PCs, laptops, orwireless devices) connected to a communication network such as theInternet. For example; end-user U1 has a communication device 109 thatconnects to a communication network 112 via a communication link 108,end-user U2 has a communication device 110 that connects to acommunication network 112 via a communication link 107 and so forthuntil end-user UM that has a communication device 111 that connects to acommunication network 112 via a communication link 106. There arecommunication networks similar to 10 where M is substantially largerthan 1,000,000.

The M communication devices of the end-users (109, 110 through 111) aretypically varying significantly in terms of computational power, datathroughput, memory and persistent storage size, and robustness in termsof up time. Some end-users are running on a communication device withcharacteristics similar to 100, whereas others end-users arecommunicating through hand-held devices with small screens, reducedmemory size and low computational power.

The M communication links (103, 104 through 105) are typically varyingsignificantly in terms of bandwidth throughput, robustness in terms ofup time, supervision, and predictability of behaviour that may varysignificant over time. Some end-users are connected via a communicationlink with characteristics similar to (103), whereas others are connectedvia wireless connections with low-speed, periodical outages, unpredictedbehaviour, and with its major properties varying significantly overtime.

There are communication systems similar to 10, where the number ofend-users (M) is significantly higher than the number of serviceproviders (N), such that M>N*100.

The service providers provide digital objects including but not limitedto audio and video in many ways. Digital objects may, for example, beconveyed using the http protocol (such as the ShoutCAST protocol does)coded in the mp3 format.

The digital objects are often provided in digital object channels suchas a radio or TV channel. A service provider typically provides severaldifferent digital object channels.

FIG. 2 shows a communication system 10, where user U1 with communicationdevice 109 has set up a communication channel 122 with SP1 in order toobtain digital objects. User U1 has an application 121 (e.g. MicrosoftMedia Player or Winamp) installed and running on her communicationdevice. The application 121 connects to a channel feed application 120on the object server 100 via the channel 122, the channel 122 being fedwith digital objects via the channel feed application 120. As digitalobjects are passed from the channel feed application 120, via thechannel 122 to the application 121, the later renders and/or stores thedigital objects. Rendering can be made in real-time, near real-time orsubstantially later. The channel 122 is conveyed over the communicationchannel 108, the communication network 112 and the communication link103.

As will be apparent by the observant reader, several disadvantages arenow imposed on the end-user U1, the end user's communication device 109,the communication link 108, the communication network 112, thecommunication links 103-105, the application 121, the channel feedapplication 120 and the channel 122.

Suppose the end user U1 is looking for a particular digital object (suchas a certain song, a song made by a certain artist, a certain film,etc), which she wants to be stored, stored via and/or rendered at theend user's communication device. Most service providers have serviceswhere digital objects are transmitted in a way that the order and timedigital objects are transmitted are non-deterministic by end-users inadvance (e.g. radio channels). Also, the bandwidth of the channel 122 islimited (often to what can be rendered in real-time) and the objects areonly available momentarily (e.g. streaming digital objects). Bandwidthis further limited by/consumed in the communication link 102, thecommunication link 108 and the communication network 112.

One approach would be to continuously monitor one channel (such as 122)and wait until a desired object is deemed to be in the channel. Upondetection of the object, the object can be obtained for later storageand/or rendering at the user U1. Unfortunately, since the bandwidth of103, 108, 112 and 122 is limited, the expected time to get a desiredobject would be substantial, especially if the desired digital object istransmitted with low frequency (for example a user would probably haveto wait several years to capture the song “Mary had a little Lamb” on arock radio station).

The user could alleviate this slightly by selecting a digital objectchannel with higher probability of sending the desired digital object(e.g. selecting a children's channel instead of a rock channel).However, this would require the user to have prior knowledge of thedigital object probabilities distributed over the different channelsavailable from a plurality of information providers, each potentiallyproviding a substantial number of different channels.

Another disadvantage to this system is that the communication link 108may be slow and with intermittent availability, reducing the user'sprobability to obtain a desired digital object with full integrity.

Further, the time from when the information providers disclose thedesired digital objects' properties (e.g. the name of the song) to theactual transmission of the digital object, may be to short for theapplication (121) to be able to obtain the entire desired digitalobject. Some information providers do not even disclose any (orinsufficient to determine triggering of recording) object properties.

FIG. 3 illustrates a communication system 50 where a number of differentcommunication networks and nodes are interconnected according to thecurrent state of the art. In principle, the system is similar to thecommunication system 10, however the communication devices 109, 110, and111 can communicate with each other (directly or indirectly), forexample user M and U2 may notify user U1 what digital objects arecurrently conveyed in user M's and U2's active digital objectchannel(s). This allows U1 to be informed about a plurality of digitalobject channels without having to monitor them individually. Example ofsuch systems is “Radio Tracker” made by RapidSolution Software AG,Germany.

Applicants have therefore identified several improvements over thecurrent state of the known art described hereunder.

The System

The following content presentation systems described in FIGS. 4-10 mayinclude instructions executed on a computer. These systems may be orinclude a computer system. They may be described in the general contextof computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines,programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that performparticular tasks.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention may bepracticed with various computer system configurations, includinghand-held wireless devices such as mobile phones or PDAs, multiprocessorsystems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics,minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention may alsobe practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks areperformed by remote processing devices that are linked through acommunications network. In a distributed computing environment, programmodules may be located in both local and remote computer storage mediaincluding memory storage devices.

The computer system may include a general purpose computing device inthe form of a computer including a processing unit, a system memory, anda system bus that couples various system components including the systemmemory to the processing unit.

Computers typically include a variety of computer readable media thatcan form part of the system memory and be read by the processing unit.By way of example, and not limitation, computer readable media maycomprise computer storage media and communication media. The systemmemory may include computer storage media in the form of volatile and/ornonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) and random accessmemory (RAM). A basic input/output system (BIOS), containing the basicroutines that help to transfer information between elements, such asduring start-up, is typically stored in ROM. RAM typically contains dataand/or program modules that are immediately accessible to and/orpresently being operated on by processing unit. The data or programmodules may include an operating system, application programs, otherprogram modules, and program data. The operating system may be orinclude a variety of operating systems such as Microsoft Windows®operating system, the Unix operating system, the Linux operating system,the Xenix operating system, the IBM AIX™ operating system, the HewlettPackard UX™ operating system, the Novell Netware™ operating system, theSun Microsystems Solaris™ operating system, the OS/2™ operating system,the BeOS™ operating system, the Macintosh™® operating system, theApache™ operating system, an OpenStep™ operating system or anotheroperating system or platform.

At a minimum, the memory includes at least one set of instructions thatis either permanently or temporarily stored. The processor executes theinstructions that are stored in order to process data. The set ofinstructions may include various instructions that perform a particulartask or tasks, such as those shown in the appended flowcharts. Such aset of instructions for performing a particular task may becharacterized as a program, software program, software, engine, module,component, mechanism, or tool. The following content presentationsystems may include a plurality of software processing modules stored ina memory as described above and executed on a processor in the mannerdescribed herein. The program modules may be in the form of any suitableprogramming language, which is converted to machine language or objectcode to allow the processor or processors to read the instructions. Thatis, written lines of programming code or source code, in a particularprogramming language, may be converted to machine language using acompiler, assembler, or interpreter. The machine language may be binarycoded machine instructions specific to a particular computer.

Any suitable programming language may be used in accordance with thevarious embodiments of the invention. Illustratively, the programminglanguage used may include assembly language, Ada, APL, Basic, C, C++,COBOL, dBase, Forth, FORTRAN, Java, Modula-2, Pascal, Prolog, REXX,and/or JavaScript for example. Further, it is not necessary that asingle type of instruction or programming language be utilized inconjunction with the operation of the system and method of theinvention. Rather, any number of different programming languages may beutilized as is necessary or desirable.

Also, the instructions and/or data used in the practice of the inventionmay utilize any compression or encryption technique or algorithm, as maybe desired. An encryption module might be used to encrypt data. Further,files or other data may be decrypted using a suitable decryption module.

The computing environment may also include other removable/nonremovable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. For example, a hard diskdrive may read or write to nonremovable, nonvolatile magnetic media. Amagnetic disk drive may read from or writes to a removable, nonvolatilemagnetic disk, and an optical disk drive may read from or write to aremovable, nonvolatile optical disk such as a CD ROM or other opticalmedia. Other removable/nonremovable, volatile/nonvolatile computerstorage media that can be used in the exemplary operating environmentinclude, but are not limited to, magnetic tape cassettes, flash memorycards, digital versatile disks, digital video tape, solid state RAM,solid state ROM, and the like. The storage media are typically connectedto the system bus through a removable or non-removable memory interface.

The processing unit that executes commands and instructions may be ageneral purpose computer, but may utilize any of a wide variety of othertechnologies including a special purpose computer, a microcomputer,mini-computer, mainframe computer, programmed micro-processor,micro-controller, peripheral integrated circuit element, a CSIC(Customer Specific Integrated Circuit), ASIC (Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit), a logic circuit, a digital signal processor, aprogrammable logic device such as an FPGA (Field Programmable GateArray), PLD (Programmable Logic Device), PLA (Programmable Logic Array),RFID integrated circuits, smart chip, or any other device or arrangementof devices that is capable of implementing the steps of the processes ofthe invention.

It should be appreciated that the processors and/or memories of thecomputer system need not be physically in the same location. Each of theprocessors and each of the memories used by the computer system may bein geographically distinct locations and be connected so as tocommunicate with each other in any suitable manner. Additionally, it isappreciated that each of the processor and/or memory may be composed ofdifferent physical pieces of equipment.

A user may enter commands and information into the computer through auser interface that includes input devices such as a keyboard andpointing device, commonly referred to as a mouse, trackball or touchpad. Other input devices may include a microphone, joystick, game pad,satellite dish, scanner, voice recognition device, touch screen, toggleswitch, pushbutton, or the like. These and other input devices are oftenconnected to the processing unit through a user input interface that iscoupled to the system bus, but may be connected by other interface andbus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or a universal serialbus (USB).

One or more monitors or display devices may also be connected to thesystem bus via an interface. In addition to display devices, computersmay also include other peripheral output devices, which may be connectedthrough an output peripheral interface. The computers implementing theinvention may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections to one or more remote computers, the remote computerstypically including many or all of the elements described above.

Various networks may be implemented in accordance with embodiments ofthe invention, including a wired or wireless local area network (LAN)and a wide area network (WAN), wireless personal area network (PAN) andother types of networks. When used in a LAN networking environment,computers may be connected to the LAN through a network interface oradapter. When used in a WAN networking environment, computers typicallyinclude a modem or other communication mechanism. Modems may be internalor external, and may be connected to the system bus via the user-inputinterface, or other appropriate mechanism. Computers may be connectedover the Internet, an Intranet, Extranet, Ethernet, or any other systemthat provides communications. Some suitable communications protocols mayinclude TCP/IP, UDP, or OSI for example. For wireless communications,communications protocols may include Bluetooth, Zigbee, IrDa or othersuitable protocol. Furthermore, components of the system may communicatethrough a combination of wired or wireless paths. For some aspects ofthe invention, such as for the transfer of payments, the communicationsinfrastructure may include networked systems such as the ElectronicFunds Transfer (EFT) network, trade exchanges, and other communicationchannels known in the industry for implementing trading transactions(which may include settlement operations) such that those describedherein.

Although many other internal components of the computer are not shown,those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that such componentsand the interconnections are well known. Accordingly, additional detailsconcerning the internal construction of the computer need not bedisclosed in connection with the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows an improved communication system 20 according to aspects ofthe invention, where user U1 with communication device 109 may set up acommunication channel 122 with SP1, communication channel 125 with SP2and so on until the communication channel 126 with SP K. User U1 mayhave an improved application 130 installed and running on hercommunication device. The application 130 may connect to channel feedapplications on the object servers 100-102 via the channels 122, 125,and 126, the channels 122, 125, and 126 being fed with digital objectsvia the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124. As digital objectsare passed from the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124, via thechannels 122, 125, and 126 to the application 130, the later may renderor store the digital objects. Rendering may be made in real-time, nearreal-time, or substantially later.

The channel 122 may be conveyed over the communication channel 108, thecommunication network 112, and the communication link 103. The channel125 may be conveyed over the communication channel 108, thecommunication network 112, and the communication link 104. The channel126 may be conveyed over the communication channel 108, thecommunication network 112, and the communication link 105.

According to some aspects of the invention, the application 130 mayconnect to an arbitrary number of digital object channels. Inparticular, the application may connect to K digital object channels.The advantage with this solution is that the likelihood of encounteringa digital object that is desired would approximately increase by afactor of K compared to system 10. Unfortunately, the bandwidthrequirements of the communication link 108, the load imposed by theapplication 130 on the communication network 112, the aggregated loadimposed on the communication links 103, 104, and 105, the aggregatedload on the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124, and on theobject servers 100, 101, and 102 will also increase by a factor of K. Ifthere are M users each connecting to K digital object channels, it maybe shown that the aggregated load on the communication network 112, thecommunication links 103, 104, and 105, the aggregated load on thechannel feed applications 120, 123, and 124, and on the object servers100, 101, and 102 will be proportional to K*M.

According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, theapplication 130 may be improved such that it will not obtain the digitalobjects directly, but instead may monitor channel digital objectdescriptors being provided by the information providers. In a variant ofthe invention, the digital object descriptors may be available at theobject servers 100, 101, and 102 and are readily available in advance,real-time, or near-real-time. Upon detection of a desired digital objectbeing transmitted in one of the monitored channels (for example, 125),the application may connect to the channel 125 and may obtain thedigital object from the appropriate object server 101. This solution hasa number of advantages over the previous method. For example, thebandwidth requirements may be reduced substantially on all communicationlinks, networks, and nodes provided that the digital objects descriptorsare smaller than the actual digital objects.

This embodiment may rely on advance, real-time, or near-real-timeinformation on digital object data being available, the communicationchannel 108 being sufficient and available, or stringent timingrequirements being imposed on the application 130. Also, if the numberof monitored channels K is selected such that it is large (e.g. largerthan 1000) the communication overhead may still be substantial,especially if each channel needs to be monitored with short intervals.

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on one or more of the K channels may also be obtainedindirectly from another server 128 in the communication network 20. Insome of the aspects of the invention, the server 128 may be updated inadvance, real-time or near-real-time by some entity or entities havingknowledge of what is to/are being sent in the different channels (e.g.120, 123, and 124).

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on the K channels can also be obtained from other sourcesthan 100, 101, 102 and 128.

According to another of the various embodiments of the invention, theservice provider's channel feed application(s) may notify theapplication 130 whenever a digital object matching the search criteriais about, is, or has just been transmitted. This may allow, for example,K different channels to be constantly monitored with minimum bandwidthimplication. When a triggering event is detected, a message may be sentto the application 130 that, in turn, may connect to the appropriateassociated digital object channel and obtain the desired digital object.This has the advantage that the load on the communication links, thecommunication networks, and the application(s) may be reduced. In someof the aspects of the invention, both the application 130 and supervisedchannel feed application(s) may be changed to support thisfunctionality.

According to various embodiments of the invention, one or severaldesignated server(s), such as 128, may be used to monitor a plurality ofdigital object channels and, upon a triggering event, it or they maytrigger the application 130 to obtain the desired digital object(s). Inthis case, the channel feed application may not need to be changed(provided that just said server(s) (e.g. 128) are notified else way).

Instead of the end-users connecting themselves to the informationproviders, embodiments and aspects of the system may connect to severalinformation providers and monitor the incoming digital objects. Thesystem may then relay one or several desired digital objects to theend-users thereby saving substantial bandwidth.

FIG. 5 shows an improved communication system 30 according to aspects ofthe invention, where user U1 with communication device 109 has set-up acommunication session 144 with an application 142. The application 142may set up a communication channel 145 with SP1, a communication channel146 with SP2, and so on until the communication channel 147 with SP K.User U1 may have an application 143 installed and running on hercommunication device (e.g. a browser) used for communicating with theapplication 142. The application 142 may connect to channel feedapplications on the object servers 100, 101, and 102 via the channels145, 146, and 147, the channel 145, 146, and 147 being fed with digitalobjects via the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124. As digitalobjects are passed from the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124,via the channels 145, 146, and 147 to the application 142, the later mayrender or store the digital objects.

The session 144 may be conveyed over the communication link 141, thecommunication network 112, and the communication link 108. Thecommunication channel 145 may be conveyed over the communication link141, the communication network 112, and the communication link 103. Thecommunication channel 146 may be conveyed over the communication link141, the communication network 112, the communication link 104, and soon until the communication channel 147 that is conveyed over thecommunication link 141, the communication network 112, and thecommunication link 105.

The communication device 140 may, but not necessarily, be characterisedby its comparatively high computational power, data throughput, largememory and persistent storage size, and significant robustness in termsof up time.

The communication link 141 may, but not necessarily, be characterised byits comparatively high bandwidth throughput, its significant robustnessin terms of up time and supervision and by its predictability ofbehaviour that remains largely constant over time.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the end user U1 may use anapplication (e.g. 143) to convey triggering conditions directly orindirectly to the application 142. The application 142 may be similar tosaid application 130, the application 143 may be setting or has set-up adigital object channel through session 144 from the application 142. Theapplication 142 may continuously monitor the K digital object channelsand, upon determining a triggering event, relay the appropriate digitalobject channel to the end-user's application 143. The application 143may then obtain the desired digital object(s).

In order to better adapt to the end-user's or other requirements, theapplication 142 may optionally adapt the desired digital object(s) orthe digital object channel according to said DOCA. In particular, thedigital object channel may be delayed such that triggering may occur anda new object communication transmission may be commenced in a timelyfashion so that the end-user's application 143 may obtain the digitalobject in its entirety.

According to some of the aspects of the invention, the application 142may connect to an arbitrary number of digital object channels. Inparticular, the application may connect to K digital object channels.The advantage with this solution is that the likelihood of encounteringa digital object that is desired would approximately increase by afactor of K compared to system 10. Unfortunately, the bandwidthrequirements of the communication link 141, the load imposed by theapplication 142 on the communication network 112, the aggregated loadimposed on the communication links 103, 104, 105, and 141, theaggregated load on the channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124), andon the object servers 100, 101, and 102 may also increase by a factor ofK. However, compared to earlier devised methods herein, if there are Musers each connecting to K digital object channels, it may be shown thatthe aggregated load on the communication network 112, the communicationlinks 103, 104, and 105, the aggregated load on the channel feedapplications 120, 123, and 124, and on the object servers 100, 101, and102 may be proportional to K and is not influenced on the number ofusers M. This is a huge improvement, bearing in mind that there might bemillions of potential users.

According to yet another embodiment of the present invention, theapplication 142 may be improved such that it may not obtain the digitalobjects directly, but may instead monitor channel digital objectdescriptors being provided by the information providers. In a variant ofthe invention, the digital object descriptors may be available at theobject servers 100, 101, and 102 and may be readily available inadvance, real-time, or near-real-time. Upon detection of a desireddigital object being transmitted in one of the monitored channels (forexample 146), the application may connect to the channel 146 and obtainthe digital object from the appropriate object server 101. This solutionhas a number of advantages over the previous methods. For example, thebandwidth requirements may be reduced substantially on almost allcommunication links, networks, and nodes provided that the digitalobjects descriptors are smaller than the actual digital objects.

However, the solution may rely on advance, real-time or near-real-timeinformation digital object digital being available, the communicationchannel 141 being sufficient and available, and stringent timingrequirements may be imposed on the application 142. Also, when thenumber of monitored channels K is selected such that it is large (e.g.larger than 1000) the communication overhead may still be substantial,especially if each channel needs to be monitored with short intervals.However this solution has the advantage that communication link 141often is better in many aspects than the communication link 108.

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on the K channels may also be obtained indirectly fromanother server 128 in the communication network 30. This may requirethat server 128 is updated in advance, real-time, or near-real-time bysome entity or entities having knowledge of what is to be sent in thedifferent channels.

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on one or several of the K channels may also be obtainedfrom other sources than 100, 101, 102 and 128.

According to a variant of the invention, the service provider's channelfeed application(s) may notify the application 142 whenever a digitalobject matching the search criteria is about, is, or has just beentransmitted. This may allow, for example, K different channels to beconstantly monitored with minimum bandwidth implication. When atriggering event is detected, a message may be sent to the application142 that, in turn, may connect to the appropriate associated digitalobject channel and obtain the desired digital object. This has theadvantage that the load on the communication links, the communicationnetworks, and the application can be reduced. On the other hand, eachand every channel feed application may need to keep track of differentapplication(s) potentially wanting to obtain digital object(s). Both theapplication 142 and all supervised channel feed application may bechanged to support this functionality.

According to an embodiment of the invention, one or several designatedserver(s), such as 128, may be used to monitor a plurality of digitalobject channels and upon a triggering event, it or they may trigger theapplication 142 to obtain the desired digital object. In this case thechannel feed application may not need to be changed (provided that justsaid server(s) (e.g. 128) are notified else way). The communicationdevice 140 and the communication device 128 may be located near eachother or co-located or integrated in the same communication device.

One disadvantage with one or several variants of the invention describedabove is that this solution may only require one digital object to beobtained simultaneously and that the communication link 108 may need tobe available and may need certain properties (e.g. throughput).

One obvious way of solving the problem of obtaining several digitalobjects simultaneously would be to have several instances of theapplication 143 running simultaneously or that the application 143 canhandle a plurality of digital object channels. This may, however,increase the requirements on the communication link 108, thecommunication link 141, and the requirements of the network node 109,the network node 140 and the application 142.

Instead of relaying the objects to the end-users, embodiments of thesystem may store digital objects emanating from the informationproviders and store these digital objects in the system for laterretrieval. This allows the end-user to be off-line during the actualcapture of the digital objects from the information providers.

FIG. 6 shows an improved communication system 40 according to a variantof the invention, where user U1 with communication device 109 may set-upa communication session 152 with an application 153 running at acommunication device 150. The application 153 acts like a digital objectstore (e.g. a file system and/or a database). An application 155 mayset-up a communication channel 145 with SP1, a communication channel 146with SP2, and so on until the communication channel 147 with SP K. UserU1 may have an application 151 installed and running on hercommunication device (e.g. a browser) used for communicating with theapplication 153 or application 155.

The application 155 may connect to channel feed applications on theobject servers 100, 101, and 102 via the channels 145, 146, and 147, thechannel 145, 146, and 147 being fed with digital objects via the channelfeed applications 120, 123, and 124. As digital objects are passed fromthe channel feed applications 120, 123, and 124, via the channels 145,146, and 147 to the application 155, the later may render or store thedigital objects. In a variant of the invention, digital objects may bestored on the digital object server application 153.

A session 144 may be conveyed over the communication link 141, thecommunication network 112, and the communication link 108. A session 152may be conveyed over the communication link 156, the communicationnetwork 112, and the communication link 108. A session 147 may beconveyed over the communication link 154. The communication channel 145may be conveyed over the communication link 141, the communicationnetwork 112, and the communication link 103. The communication channel146 may be conveyed over the communication link 141, the communicationnetwork 112, and the communication link 104, and so on until thecommunication channel 147 which may be conveyed over the communicationlink 141, the communication network 112, and the communication link 105.

The communication device 140 and the communication device 150 may, butnot necessarily, be characterised by comparatively high computationalpower, data throughput, large memory, or persistent storage size andsignificant robustness in terms of up time.

The communication link 141, the communication link 154, and thecommunication link 156 may, but not necessarily, be characterised bycomparatively high bandwidth throughput, its significant robustness interms of up time and supervision, and by its predictability of behaviourthat remains largely constant over time.

According to embodiments of the invention, the end user U1 may use anapplication (e.g. 151) to convey triggering conditions directly orindirectly to the application 155. The application 155 may be similar tosaid application 130, the application 155 setting or previously set-up adigital object communication link through session 157 to the application153. The application 155 may continuously monitor the K digital objectchannels and, upon determining a triggering event, may obtain thedesired digital object and may relay the appropriate digital object tothe application 153. The application 153 may then obtain the desireddigital object(s). In a variant of the invention, the application 155,upon a determining a triggering event, may relay the digital objectchannel to the application 153. A desired object may be streamed fromapplication 155 to application 153.

In other aspects of the invention, desired digital objects may beassociated with a particular user whenever stored (for example byassociating one or several EUP to the desired digital object). Thisallows the system or users to identify digital object(s) that are orwere requested by a certain user or collection of users.

In order to better adapt to the end-user's or other requirements, theapplication 153 or the application 155 may optionally adapt the desireddigital object(s) or the digital object channel according to said DOCA.

In aspects of the invention, the application 155 (or the application153) may store a plurality of users' triggering conditions. Upondetection of several triggering events pertaining to the same desireddigital object (but for different users) the application 155 (or theapplication 153) may obtain the desired digital object once from aservice provider and store the digital object for all said users. In yetanother variant of the invention, the desired digital objects may onlybe stored once by the application 153. However, several associations maybe made to the stored desired digital object. Upon association or userretrieval, certain modification of the desired digital object (e.g.source tagging further described below) may be applied.

Following one or several triggering events, user U1 may access thestored/associated desired digital objects in the application 153 (orapplication 155). Access can be made through numerous methods andprotocols including said CP.

In variants of the inventions, the application 153 may be seen as aremote storage for user's digital objects. For example, users sometimesstore digital objects on other nodes than their own user device (e.g. ona local file server, on a remote file server on the Internet or anotheruser's computer in a home network) and the application can thus be seenas yet another external storage space.

In variants of the invention, the application 153 (or the application155) may contain a method to authenticate users, user's communicationapplications, or communication devices. In this way, the system canensure that access to desired objects are legitimate. Authenticationmay, for example, be done by letting the user, the user's application151, or another user application provide one or several of the said EUPto the application 153 (or the application 155). In yet another variantof the invention, access to stored digital objects may be done usinghttp or https. Other methods of authentication will be well known tothose of skill in the art.

According to various aspects, the application 155 may connect to anarbitrary number of digital object channels. In particular, theapplication may connect to K digital object channels. The advantage withthis solution is that the likelihood of encountering a digital objectthat is desired would approximately increase by a factor of K comparedto system 10. Unfortunately, the bandwidth requirements of thecommunication link 141, the load imposed by the application 155 on thecommunication network 112, the aggregated load imposed on thecommunication links 103, 104, 105, and 141, the aggregated load on thechannel feed applications 120, 123, and 124, and on the object servers100, 101, and 102 may also increase by a factor of K. However, comparedto earlier devised methods herein, if there are M users each connectingto K digital object channels, it can be shown that the aggregated loadon the communication network 112, the communication links 103, 104, and105, the aggregated load on the channel feed applications 120, 123, and124, and on the object servers 100, 101, and 102 can be proportional toK and is not influenced on the number of users M. This is a hugeimprovement, bearing in mind that there might be millions of potentialusers.

Furthermore, one can conclude that the communication link 108 need notbe established once the triggering conditions have been transferred fromthe end-user's application 151. Instead, the user U1 may obtain thestored/associated desired digital objects at any time and possibly withother communication devices than 109 and through other communicationlinks than 108. This allows an increased flexibility and relaxes therequirements on the communication device 109 and the communication link108.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, theapplication 155 may be improved such that it will not obtain the digitalobjects directly, but may instead monitor channel digital objectdescriptors being provided by the information providers. In a variant ofthe invention, the digital object descriptors may be available at theobject servers 100, 101, and 102 and may be readily available inadvance, real-time, or near-real-time. Upon detection of a desireddigital object being transmitted in one of the monitored channels (forexample 145), the application may connect to the channel 145 and obtainthe digital object from the appropriate object server 101. This solutionhas a number of advantages over the previous methods. For example, thebandwidth requirements can be reduced substantially on all communicationlinks, networks and nodes provided that the digital objects descriptorsare smaller than the actual digital objects and that most digitalobjects are not desired by any user.

However, the solution may rely on advance, real-time, or near-real-timeinformation on digital object data being available, the communicationchannel 141 being sufficient and available, or stringent timingrequirements imposed on the application 142. Also, when the number ofmonitored channels K is selected such that it is large (e.g. larger than1000) the communication overhead may still be substantial, especially ifeach channel needs to be monitored with short intervals.

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on one or several of the K channels may also be obtainedindirectly from another server 128 in the communication network 40. Thismay require that server 128 is updated in advance, real-time, ornear-real-time by some entity or entities having knowledge of what is tobe sent in the different channels (e.g. 145, 146, . . . , 147).

The monitoring of descriptors of digital objects currently beingtransmitted on the K channels can also be obtained from other sourcesthan 100, 101, 102 and 128.

According to a variant of the invention, the service provider's channelfeed application(s) can notify the application 155 whenever a digitalobject matching the search criteria is about, is, or has just beentransmitted. This allows, for example, K different channels to beconstantly monitored with minimum bandwidth implication. Whenever atriggering event is detected, a message may be sent to the application155 that, in turn, connects to the appropriate associated digital objectchannel and obtains the desired digital object. This has the advantagethat the load on the communication links, the communication networks,and the application(s) can be reduced. On the other hand, each and everychannel feed application may need to keep track of different applicationpotentially wanting to obtain digital object. Both the application 155and all supervised channel feed application may be changed to supportthis functionality.

According to another variant of the invention, one or several designatedserver(s), such as 128, may be used to monitor a plurality of digitalobject channels and upon a triggering event, it or they may trigger theapplication 155 to obtain the desired digital object(s). In this casethe channel feed application may not need to be changed (provided thatjust said server(s) (e.g. 128) are notified else way). The communicationdevice 140 and the communication device 128 may be located near eachother, co-located, or integrated in the same communication device.

In aspects of the invention the application 153 and the application 155are integrated into one application. In another variant of the inventionthe communication link 154 may be arranged such that it has significantthroughput and reliability (e.g. through a local network).

In another aspect of the invention, the distance between thecommunication device 140 and the communication device 150 may be short,allowing cheap, reliable and high-speed communication. In one variantthe communication the device 140 and the communication device 150 may beinterconnected with a 1 Gbit/s local network. In yet another variant thecommunication device 140 and the communication device 150 are co-locatedand share the same memory or storage, or they coincide in the samephysical machine.

In a variant of the invention, the communication link 154 may beconveyed over another communication network, such as the communicationnetwork 112.

In other embodiments digital objects may be obtained by the application155 and stored by application 153 regardless of any triggeringconditions set by the end-users. Triggering conditions may then bedetermined substantially later than the digital objects were stored. Forexample, all digital objects obtained by the application 155 may bestored by the application 153 for a certain time or indefinitely. Usersmay then log in to the application 153 and retrieve one or severaldesired digital objects. In this embodiment of the present invention,triggering conditions may be conveyed from the users application 151,via the communication session 152 to the application 153.

In other aspects of the invention, the application 153 may associatedigital objects or set(s) of digital objects with a plurality ofend-users. This allows the system to store files more efficiently thanif each digital object were to be stored for each user.

User Interaction

In some embodiments of the invention, users may be first presented witha search page where triggering conditions can be entered. In FIG. 7, theend-user can select the category of the digital objects to obtain (i.e.Radio, TV, Music Categories, TV Categories, and Top30). The search pagealso may contain a text input element where a text can be entered and asearch button used to initiate searching.

In some embodiments of the invention, users can then enter the searchtext in the designated text input element. In FIG. 8 the user hasentered “Berlin”. After the desired search text is entered and thecorrect category is chosen, the user may click on the submit (i.e. “OK”)button.

According to some aspects of the invention, when the end-user haspressed the designated submit button, the system may match or comparethe search text and any combination of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT,DCT and CP with any other combination of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT,DCT and CP. For example, the search text may be matched against thetitle and the artist of songs. In variants of the inventions, songs maybe readily and instantly available for search comparison (e.g. “timeshifting”). In other aspects, the songs may have been previously requestto be acquired by the invention and may now be presented afteracquisition. In the example above, two different songs made by Berlinare shown together with basic data on the digital object (e.g. name,duration, album picture and track number). References are made fromwhere and when the song was initially broadcasted and to third partyinformation sources (e.g. wikipedia). The end-user may now listen to aselected part of the song (possibly with reduced coding rate) byselecting “pre-listen” in order to manually establish a correct match(e.g. before the user selects to perform another action). By clicking“download” the song is moved from the user's time shift buffer to localstore (e.g. the computer's harddisk or the wireless handset's mediacard). By clicking “play full song” the song is played locally at theend-users communication device. By clicking “Buy song” the user isredicted to another page where she can buy a digital object representingthe song (e.g. with much better quality than the song found in thesearch).

Recording Grid

FIG. 10 illustrates a communication system 60 where a number ofdifferent communication networks and nodes are interconnected accordingto embodiments of the invention. The service providers SP1 100, SP2 101,through SPN 102, are, via the corresponding communication links 103,104, and 105 and the communication network 112, connected to the mediaobject buses 161, 162, and 163, the three latter collectively denoted“Antenna”. For each user, U1, U2, through UM, there may be acorresponding and separate User Recording Entity (hereafter URE) that,in turn, obtains digital objects and forwards the obtained digitalobjects to intermediate or final storage 174. In the figure above, U1'sURE 170 is recording digital objects obtained from the Antenna via thecommunication channel 164. U2's URE 171 is recording digital objectsobtained from the Antenna and U3's URE 172 is recording digital objectsobtained from the Antenna. After recording, the recorded digital objectsmay be sent to the compressor 173 via a communication link 165. Aftercompression, the recorded data objects may be sent to intermediate orfinal storage 174 via a communication link 166. In a variant of theinvention, the users' UREs may be located close to the Antenna andsubstantially distant from the users' location. In other variants of thepresent invention, the UREs may be located on one or several centralservers. In still other aspects of the invention, a plurality of UREsmay be located on a central server which are connected to a storageentity 174, possibly via an optional compressor 173 using high bandwidthconnections. In other aspects, the high bandwidth connection is anetwork with 100 Mbit/s throughput, in still other variants of theinvention the high bandwidth connection is a network with 1 Gbit/sthroughput or higher. In another embodiment of the invention, a singleURE may be located substantially away from other UREs in the system. Forexample at the end user's premises.

In aspects of the present invention, digital object channel streams thatare made available (by the Antenna) to UREs may provide severaladvantages over the known art, for example, the recordings are madeindividually by the different users providing legal benefits in certainjurisdictions, the handing of media is separate from other usersproviding “shielding” of media between users (e.g. Errors in the systemwhere illegitimate digital objects are “leaked” from one user to anotherare less probable).

In one aspect of the invention, the output of the UREs may be storedindividually for each user, whereby the optional compressor 173 does notcompress data and the storage entity 174 stores the individual userobjects separately.

In another aspect of the invention, the intermediate or final storagemeans 174 may be common or partly common for two or more users. Dataemanating from UREs may then be compressed over the users or over thedata object channels that the users are sharing. In this way, thebenefit of separate recording and an efficient storage of digitalobjects may be achieved at the same time. Compression may be done usinga plurality of methods or combination of methods.

For example, the output from each separate URE may be arranged so thatoutput from several users are arranged in the order of digital objectchannel sources. For each digital object channel source, the output forthat channel source of the various UREs may be compared with each other.Because the users are recording the same data source, there is a strongcorrelation between the different user streams from the same digitalobject source, compression may yield a significant reduction of the dataflow while still retaining individual recording. In one variant of theinvention, digital object channel flows may be recorded and arranged inblocks by the separate UREs. The later may also attach a checksum to thedifferent blocks (e.g. Using MD5, CRC32, lateral xor) so that they maybe tested for equality (with a reasonably high probability) withouthaving to look at all the content of the individual blocks. It should benoted that according to various aspects of the invention, compressionmay be made such that information from different users are mixed so thateach user contributes to the aggregate compressed result and thus, thereis not only one copy stored that is “shared” between the users. In onevariant of the invention, a change in one user's stream will result in acompletely different output aggregated compressed stream.

In some of the embodiments of the invention, encryption may be employedbefore or after each UREs. In aspects of the invention, a set of EUPs(e.g. users' credentials and passwords) may be attached to the UREstreams and may be encrypted before, during, or after compression. Thisallows implementation of access control to the compressed aggregateddata object whereby only users that knows matching EUPs (e.g.credential/password pairs) are able to decrypt or decompress theaggregated data object. For example, users may attach their ids(=credential in this variant) and a chosen passwords to each URE stream.After compression, the system may encrypt the compressed aggregated dataobject with a symmetric secret key unknown by the users. Upon requestinga user's recorded Digital Object, the system may use the secret key todecrypt the aggregated data object. After decryption, the system maycompare the stored credential/password pair with the credential/passwordpair supplied by the user upon requesting the digital object. If they donot match, access may be denied to the recorded Digital Object. If thedo match, the system decompresses the aggregated data object andextracts the user's portion of the compressed data. This solutionprovides an integral access control mechanism to the compressed dataobjects whereby users are guaranteed to be authentic and their dataobjects are distinct.

In aspects of the invention, a compressed aggregated data object may bedivided into several parts (e.g. one target group for European users andone target group for American users) whereby the aggregated data objectis decompressed and the users belonging to different target groups andtheir corresponding credentials/password pairs are divided in to aplurality of distinct data objects. The latter being re-compressed andre-encrypted again after being split. Possibly with different secretencryption keys.

According to the various aspects of the invention, compression methodsinclude, but are not limited to, one or one or more combinations of anyof: Huffman coding, adaptive Huffman coding, Run Length; arj, zip, rar,rk, lzh, lha, pkz, 7z, bh, bz2, bza, cab, gza, j, lha, pkz, rs, sqx, gz,uha and yzl.

In a variant of the invention, the users U1, U2, through UM may have anindividual set of recording markers that indicate which digital objectchannel a user shall record. The set of recording markers may be changedat any time. For example, in FIG. 10, U1 is recording digital objectsfrom SP1, SP2 and SPN, U2 is recording digital objects from SP2 and UMis recording digital object from SP2 and SPN. It shall be noted thatdetermination of recording, just as in other variants of the presentinvention, may be done using other means. For example, the user mayenter a triggering condition for recording whereby, for example, theuser enters a description matched against said DOP, DOCP, SPP, DOT, CPor DCT. Useful examples include, but are not limited to, entering a setof channels to record, entering a set of music or TV genre to record,enter a certain artist to record, or entering the name of a certain TVseries to record.

It should be noted that a URE may be realized using a common process fora plurality of users, a process for each user, or a combination thereof.The URE can advantageously be implemented using DSP or GPU (GraphicsProcessing Unit) technology that can provide high memory throughput orparallel processing. Presently, there are GPUs with over 512 parallelhardware threads than can execute concurrently. Aspects of the presentinvention may include solutions where blocks of users (e.g. the numberof parallel threads) are scheduled sequentially. For example, using a512 thread GPU, digital objects that are available on the Antenna areaccessed by 512 URE at the same time or almost at the same time. Afterall threads have executed, a new set of 512 users' UREs may be scheduledagain until all users have recorded what is currently on the Antenna.After this, new data that may have been buffered by the system are madeavailable at the Antenna an the process starts over again with the firstblock of 512 users' UREs.

The temporary data storage or communication that may be required betweenthe Antenna and the plurality of UREs may be implemented using severaltechnologies including but not limited to: shared memory, memory mappedfiles, files, pipes, sockets, named pipes, and graphic card memory. Thesame technologies as recently stated just above may also be used fortemporary storage or communication between the UREs and the optionalcompressor 173 and the UREs and the storage entity 174.

With respect to one or several embodiments or aspects of the inventiondescribed above, one or several further improvements may be made, one orseveral observations may be seen or variants of the invention can bedescribed, as will be devised below.

Firewalls may be present between the end user's communication device 109and the communication network 112 or can elsewhere be present incommunication networks. Streaming media are sometimes conveyed overTCP/UDP port numbers or are using communication protocols that areblocked by firewalls. In a variant of the invention, the communicationsystem 30 and the communication system 40 can allow digital object to besent on other ports and using other communication protocols thanoriginally used. Thus, decreasing the probability that a firewall willblock any desired digital objects.

Using a collection of triggering conditions, it is possible for one orseveral service providers to select digital objects to be sent on one orseveral digital object channels such that the likelihood of triggeringevents will be increased (or even maximized) or such that the number oftriggering events will be increased (or even maximized). The collectionof triggering conditions may be selected arbitrarily, for example tosatisfy a given set of users (e.g. having a certain set of said EUP, forexample are from a certain country). This allows, for example, one orseveral entities operating a system according to one or several variantsof the invention to also be service providers or associate with one orseveral existing service providers; the service providers being able topresent more appealing digital object channels and, at the same time,improving end-users probability of obtaining desired digital object.

The system may store one or several properties of the digital objects,the service providers, or the digital object properties and associateand store them in a database. Association and storage may include anycombination of said DOCP, SPP, DOT, CP, DCT and DOP. The associationsand stored data are referred to as History below. For example, in asimple case, History could be the digital content (e.g. mp3 part) of asong together with the artist and title and time of recording of thesong.

To provide guidance to the end-users, it is possible to disclose certaininformation elements that can be derived within the system. This mayinclude, but is not limited to, a list of the most common searchcriteria (e.g. triggering conditions), a list of the most common digitalobjects being provided by a set of service providers (e.g. all serviceproviders or all service providers in a country or any other certain setof said SPP), a set or digital object channels (e.g. having a certainset of said DOCP, for example rock channels), or a list of the mostcommon desired digital objects that have been obtained by a set of users(e.g. having a certain set of said EUP, for example all users) and anysaid History. This allows implementation of top lists, most-playedlists, most searched for lists, most rendered by users lists etc.

Upon entering triggering conditions, end users may enter (or the systemmay set) the number of digital object channels that shall be allocatedand supervised by the system for that particular user or set oftriggering conditions. The system may then be arranged such that saidHistory is used to provide the most likely way to provide desired objectwith respect to the triggering conditions and/or with respect to otheroptimization criteria. For example, the system may know where “Mary hasa little lamb” has been played most frequently. In some jurisdiction,the number of monitored digital object channels may influence thelegality of one or several variants of the invention. It is possible forthe system to, depending on an end-users jurisdiction or other said EUP,adapt the number of digital object channels automatically.

In certain jurisdictions, where the use of certain embodiments oraspects of the present inventions may be prohibited, the system mayselect other embodiments or aspects of the invention that are deemed tobe legal. Asserting one or several of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT, CPand DCT may constitute a system automatic selection of inventionembodiment or aspect. For example, downloading of objects to an externalfile system according to the communication system 40 might be illegalwhereas downloading to a local file system according to thecommunication system 30 might be legal. Selection of invention variantincludes any and all variations and permutations described herein.

In certain jurisdictions, where the use of certain variants of thepresent inventions may be prohibited, the system may, instead ofobtaining the objects itself, provide end-users with guidance on whichdigital object channel(s) they should monitor given certain triggeringcondition(s). For example, this may be done matching the triggeringcondition(s) with said History. This may also be applied to otherjurisdictions, regardless if variants are also legal.

It is possible to significantly delay or even capture digital objectchannels so that an end-user can search backwards in time and thus bemore likely obtain desired digital objects much faster than having towait and examine each digital object arriving from the differentchannels in real time. For example, by delaying 1000 digital objectchannels for two weeks (and assuming that each digital object is inaverage 5 minutes long) up to 1000*60*24*7*2/5=4 million digital objectsmay be instantly compared against a triggering condition and theresulting list potentially presented to the end-user in less than 1second. In a variant of the present invention, objects may have ensuredpersistence in the system for only a certain predetermined time, afterwhich they are eligible for automatic deletion by the system unless theyhave been accessed by the user or users. In another variant of theinvention, the predetermined time is two days. In another variant,unused digital objects are removed after two weeks. In yet anothervariant of the present invention, unused objects are deleted after oneyear.

In other aspects of the invention, the delay depth applied for a certainend-user may be adapted individually with respect to any combination orpermutation of one or several of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT, CP andDCT. It is noted that this solution would require a significant storagespace if the delay time is high. In the example above (and if eachdigital object is 5 Mbyte in average), the total space would be 4M*5Mbyte=20 TByte. In an embodiment of the invention, only a limited set ofphysical copies of the delayed digital objects may be used for aplurality of end-users such that the physical copies are less than thenumber of plurality of end-users. For example, there may be only onecopy of the delayed digital objects for all end-users. In yet anotheraspect of the invention, certain properties of the delayed digitalobjects (e.g. said EUP to be associated with the digital object) may bestored separately from the delayed digital object and subsequentlyapplied to the digital objects preceding any transfer of the desireddigital object to the end-users device(s). This ensures that the digitalobject delay storage size can be minimized while still allowingpersonalized digital objects. For example, the end user's name may beappended to the digital object just before it is sent to the end user.In a variant of the invention the delay time is 10 hours. In anothervariant the delay time is 2 weeks. In yet another variant the delay timeis several years.

As been described in and under FIG. 10, compression can be applied todigital objects or DOPs. Upon storing one or several digital objects orDOP, the Digital object(s) or DOP(s) can be encrypted. This ensures thatthe digital objects remain personal which can be important in somejurisdictions. Encryption (e.g. DES) can be made using a key from one orseveral of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT, CP and DCT or by using anyother secret key.

In several embodiments of the invention, objects may be transferred froma system to one or several end-users. Provided that there are severalend-users that are to receive a particular digital object, the systemmay use peer-to-peer file distribution protocols (e.g. BitTorrent, FastTrack, Direct Connect, Gnutella and eDonkey) to distribute the digitalobject. The system may then send the digital object in significantlyless times than if each user received the digital object from the systemdirectly and individually. For example, if 1000 end-users are to receivea certain digital object, it may be sufficient for the system to providethe digital object just 1 to 10 times depending on how the receivingend-users are acting. Thus, the outgoing bandwidth demands can bereduced by a factor of 100 to 1000.

Upon storing one or several digital objects, the Digital object(s) canbe attributed with one or several properties pertaining to digitalrights management (DRM). This ensures that the digital objects remainsprotected and can only be used as allowed in one or several associatedjurisdictions. Determination of DRM and selection of DRM parameters canbe made using one or several of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT, CP andDCT. For example, digital objects may only be used on the communicationdevice 109 on which it was originally obtained.

The number of digital object channels can be increased by allowing thesystem to obtain digital objects indirectly from other sources includingbut not limited to FM, AM, TV, Cable TV, Wire, Satellite or DABreceivers. Said other sources may be located in a plurality ofgeographic locations (substantially apart) to further increase thenumber of digital channels available. When connecting basically analoguetype of other sources (e.g. FM), media adapters may be used to digitizeobjects and to feed them into one or several data communicationnetworks. Objects emanating from digital other sources may also beadapted before they are fed into one or several data communicationnetworks (e.g. by employing DOCA). The use of certain sources may becontrolled by using one or several of said EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT, CPand DCT. For example, digital other objects might only be obtained fromother sources located in an end user's home country.

Upon storing, obtaining, or otherwise handling one or several digitalobjects, one or several variations of the invention may employ saidDOCA.

Sometimes the communication link 108 may have limited performance. Inorder to improve the user experience for example, to allow the user todetermine a successful download of a digital object that is largewithout having to download the entire digital object, the system cangenerate or obtain one or several said DOP from the desired digitalobject. For example, a thumbnail can be generated for a large photo, the8 first seconds of audio may be generated, a sequence of representativescenes from a video film can be generated, or a more aggressive digitalcoding can be applied. The user can use this reduced representation ofthe desired digital object to establish successful download, before theentire desired digital object is obtained over the communication link108.

According to an aspect of the invention, applications (such as 155 and142) may present a list of the most commonly obtained objects (e.g. atop 30 list).

Sometimes a plurality of digital objects match a certain triggeringcondition. This may happen especially if searching can be made over asignificant time period. In an embodiment of the invention, desireddigital objects can be presented in a certain order to the end user suchthat the most relevant digital objects are shown first. Sorting can bemade on any number of, combination of or comparison of said EUP, DOCP,SPP, DOP, DOT and DCT or the triggering conditions previously entered bythe user. For example, digital objects with the highest bit-ratemultiplied with a weight factor for the digital object's coding type mayconstitute the order of presentation. For example, audio objects withthe best quality are shown first such that 128 kbit/s aac+coded objectsare shown before 128 kbit/s mp3 coded objects which are shown before 96kbit/s mp3 coded objects. Also, the number of times a digital object, orany of the DOP of digital objects, has been entered as a triggeringcondition or has been downloaded may be weighted in during sorting. Forexample, songs that are more often requested may be presented abovesongs that are less frequently requested.

An application may sometimes connect to a plurality of digital objectchannels emanating from the same information provider. Sometimes adigital object channel may carry several digital objects in parallel.

Quality Improvement

Digital objects obtained over digital object channels are often modifiedcompared to the original digital objects (e.g. movies can have ads andmusic may be overlaid and/or replaced by a talking radio channel host).These modifications are often not desired by the end-user. To overcomethis drawback, several solutions are devised as described hereunder:

The system may have original digital objects or representations orsignatures of original digital objects. Whenever a digital object isreceived by the system, the obtained digital object (or itscorresponding representation and/or signature) may be compared with aplurality of original digital objects, representations, or signatures tofind a match or a most likely match. Upon match, several associatedparameters may be obtained from the database or is extracted from theoriginal digital object, its representation, or signature. Theparameters describe the start and end of the digital object such thatthe system is able to trim any trailing or tailing redundant information(such as talk or other song in a radio channel). Thus, the system canproduce a digital object more like the original digital object eventhough it was distorted prior to or while being sent through the digitalobject channel. In a variant of the invention, information can also betrimmed in the middle of the received digital object in the same way. Itshould be noted that a plurality of sections might be excluded. Forexample, commercial ads may be removed from a digital film. It shouldfurther be noted that the trimming of redundant sections may be done byspanning or seamlessly joining sections. The modifications being madesuch that any clicking or jerking is suppressed. For example, bygradually blending from one section to another or by cross fading audiocontent.

According to another variant of the invention, the general method andapparatus of applying the above scheme to restore any digital object(obtained by any means) by applying a known other digital object, acorresponding representation, or signature can be applied. For example,a user may have an application that goes through one or several digitalobject and improves the digital objects such as they will more resemblethe original digital objects. The application may have built in originaldigital objects, corresponding representations and/or signatures or theapplication can access a communication network (e.g. the Internet) toobtain the original digital objects, corresponding representationsand/or signatures over the communication network.

Digital Object Delay

By routing the media stream through a delaying network element and thesignalling of the associated meta-data directly without any delay,several advantages may be obtained. Some of the problems associated withreceiving a certain media stream in a timely fashion are stated below.

Firstly, some media senders delay the meta-data so that it will arriveafter the corresponding stream already has been started.

Secondly, if the meta-data is not known and is determined by the system,an inherent delay is imposed from the start of the stream to thecalculation and matching of a digital signature.

Thirdly, if the media stream may obtained indirectly from other sourcesincluding but not limited to FM, AM, TV, Cable TV, Wire, Satellite orDAB. The adaptation and determination of meta-data may be delayed.

Fourthly, applications and communication channels necessary to receivethe media stream often need a certain set-up time to start, connect,allocate communication resources, allocate storage resources and connectto the stream.

Fifthly, the end of the media stream may not be detected in real time.Most algorithms are likely to incorporate redundant data at the end ofthe captured portion.

By introducing a delay in the media stream, the system will have time toinform the receiving media stream application to start capturing themedia stream sufficiently in advance so that the media stream can becaptured in its entirety.

In some of the aspects of the invention, the system determines theactual start of the desired part of the media stream just as it entersthe system or within a time less than the media stream delay imposed bythe system. By also observing the time when the meta-data wasestablished and/or when the meta-data was sent to the application anindication of an estimated start time can be sent to the receivingapplication so it may start recording at the exact time the media streamwill arrive, delayed by the system, to its receiving input.

The same approach may be used when the end of the desired media streamportion is detected. Upon detection of an end mark, the system has timeto send an end of capture message to the receiving application. Again,this can be done using the same timing algorithm as described above.

In various embodiments of the invention, this may applied to all aspectsand variations of the invention elsewhere described.

Source Tagging

As has been described, the system records digital media streamsemanating from digital media providers and renders or stores them asdigital objects. To ensure the end-user's possibility to prove that thedigital objects are rightfully obtained (e.g. not illegally downloadedvia a file share community) the system, according to some aspects of thepresent invention, marks the digital objects with certain informationobjects. This may be applied to all solutions devised above and isdenoted Source Tagging. The marker types includes, but are not limitedto the following:

The date when the digital object was recorded (local time and/or UTCwhere the object was recorded);

The time when the digital object was recorded. (local time and/or UTCwhere the object was recorded);

The country where the recording was made;

A descriptor of a geographical area where the recording was made (e.g.region, zip code, GPS coordinates);

The IP address of the network card over which the digital object wasobtained;

The port number used on the network card over which the digital objectwas obtained (e.g. recorded) (e.g. TCP or UDP port number);

The server name of the machine that obtained the digital object (e.g.recording);

The network routing path that was used between the digital objectprovider and the digital object obtaining network card (e.g. Unixtraceroute command output);

The resource locator (used by the recording device) at the digitalobject provider to select media channel/object (e.g. URL);

The date when the digital object was recorded and/or sent (local timeand/or UTC where the digital object was sent);

The time when the digital object was recorded. (local time and/or UTCwhere the digital object was sent);

The country where the digital objects emanated from;

A descriptor of a geographical area where the digital objects emanatedfrom (e.g. region, zip code, GPS coordinates);

The IP address of the network card from which the digital object(s)emanated from;

The port number used on the network card from which the digital objectsemanated from (e.g. TCP or UDP port number);

The server name of the machine that the digital objects emanated from;

The name of the channel (e.g. the radio station name or TV channel name)that the digital objects emanated from;

The date when the digital object was requested (local time and/or UTCwhere the object was initially requested, e.g. at the end-users homecomputer.);

The time when the digital object was recorded. (local time and/or UTCwhere the object was initially requested);

The country where the recording was initially requested;

A descriptor of a geographical area where the recording was initiallyrequested (e.g. region, zip code, GPS coordinates);

The IP address of the network card over which the recording wasinitially requested;

The port number used on the network card over which the recording wasinitially requested (e.g. TCP or UDP port number);

The server name of the machine that made the initial request;

The network routing path that was used between the initial recorder andthe recoding controller network card (e.g. Unix traceroute commandoutput);

A date when the digital object was otherwise handled (local time and/orUTC);

A time when the digital object was otherwise handled (local time and/orUTC);

A country otherwise related to the handling of the digital object;

A descriptor of a geographical area otherwise related to the handling ofthe digital object (e.g. region, zip code, GPS coordinates);

The IP address of the network card otherwise related to the handling ofthe digital object;

A port number used on the network card otherwise related to the handlingof the digital object (e.g. TCP or UDP port number);

A server name of a machine that otherwise relates to the handling of thedigital object;

A network routing path that was otherwise related to the handling of thedigital object (e.g. Unix traceroute command output);

Any said EUP;

Any said DOCP;

Any said SPP;

Any said CP;

Any said DOT;

Any said DCT;

Any said DOP;

Any information element obtained from an external or internal databasein view of anything above;

Or any possible permutation and/or combination of one or several of theabove said marker types.

In yet another aspect of the invention, the system is arranged such thatthe markers are attached to the obtained digital object in one orseveral ways, including but not limited to:

Setting one or several meta-tags in the digital object according to oneor several of the markers. This allows, for example, some media playersto show the meta-tags while the digital object is rendered;

Setting the name used (e.g. the file name) for the digital object toreflect one or several markers;

Inserting one or several markers into the actual digital object such asthey will be rendered upon rendering the digital objects (e.g. appendingaudio to an audio objects describing the markers in plain English orinserting the markers as text in a video object);

Inserting one or several markers into the actual digital object such asthey will not be rendered upon rendering the digital objects (e.g.invisible watermarks in a picture or insertion in non-renderableportions of a video clip);

Setting another digital object to reflect the markers and associating itwith the obtained digital object. This includes, but is not limited to,directly or indirectly referencing a URI, linking, or introducingdatabase association;

Or any possible permutation and/or combination of one or several of theabove said methods to attach markers;

This may be applied to all aspects and embodiments the inventionelsewhere described. For example, digital object providers in thecommunication system 10 may alter the digital objects and/or the digitalobject channel when end users are directly connected as described above.

Attachment of Additional Information Objects

So far, information objects related to the process of ordering,producing, or obtaining digital objects has been handled in terms ofattaching or associating markers (related to the process of ordering,producing and obtaining digital objects) to the obtained digital object.It is also possible to attach or associate other digital objects to theobtained digital object; the attached or associated digital objectsbeing possibly uncorrelated to the ordering, producing or obtaining ofthe obtained digital object. The other digital objects can include, butare not limited to:

Digital information objects that are of commercial nature (e.g. ads).This includes, but are not limited to, banners, pictures, voice messagesand video clips;

Digital information objects that are of informative nature (e.g. legalinformation). This includes, but are not limited to, banners, pictures,voice messages and video clips;

Or other digital information objects;

The digital information objects may be adapted or selected according toany of the properties of the ordering, producing, or obtaining,including but not limited to, said EUP, said DOCP, said SPP, said CP,said DCT, said DOP, the characteristics of the obtained digital object(e.g. a rock song). For example a suitable commercial ad may be selecteddepending on the end-users location, music style or citizenship, wherethe content and language is adapted to fit the end-user and/or theadvertiser.

This may be applied to all aspects and embodiments the inventionelsewhere described. For example, digital object providers in thecommunication system 10 may alter the digital objects or the digitalobject channel when end users are directly connected as described above.

The end-users can have a variety of different communication devices(such as 109), including but not limited to, computers, PDAs, wirelessdevices, mobile phones, laptops, palmtops, mp3 players and portablemedia players. An end-user can also be logged into a system from aplurality of different communication devices at the same time orsequentially. A system can be arranged such that it adapts the coding ofthe Digital Objects or the way it is conveyed (I.e. re-selection ofDOCP, CP and/or DCT) depending on the communication device properties.As been described above, in aspects of the invention, the system maychange the Digital Object Coding for a wireless devices so that it maybe conveyed using less bandwidth (instead scarifying perceived renderingquality).

In a variation of the invention, access is limited to a certain numberof simultaneous communication devices for a specific user, therebypreventing misuse whereby a user otherwise might have disclosed herlogin data to a large number of other persons.

In another variation of the invention, the ability to render, obtain,permanently store Digital Objects at the end-user premises or by theend-user is controlled by the system by identifying valid combinationsof EUP, DOCP, SPP, DOP, DOT and/or DCT. For example, a user in Italymight not be able to store a TV program broadcasted in France but mightbe able to just view it, users in Malaysia might be able to stream radiosongs but might not be able to save them on local store or make anyduplicates, users in Turkey might be able to save radio songs, but insuch cases they can only be copied three times.

Having described a number of different embodiments of the invention, itshould be apparent to the person of ordinary skill that the inventionhas numerous benefits and advantages. For example, the inventionprovides a systemized framework for acquiring and presenting digitalobjects to a user.

Other benefits and advantages of the invention will be apparent to theperson of ordinary skill in the art.

Other embodiments and uses of this invention will be apparent to thosehaving ordinary skill in the art upon consideration of the specificationand practice of the invention disclosed herein. The specification andexamples given should be considered exemplary only, and it iscontemplated that the appended claims will cover any other suchembodiments or modifications as fall within the true scope of theinvention.

1. A computer-implemented method of presenting requested content,gathered by a network-based server, to a remote user device, comprising:receiving, from a remote user on a remote user device connected to anetwork, a request for one or more media objects; searching one or moreundedicated media streams; locating at least one undedicated mediastream transmitting the one or more media objects; recording a copy ofthe one or more media objects from the at least one undedicated mediastream; and making the copy of the one or more media objects availableto the remote user device; wherein the remote user device is notrequired to stay connected to the network while locating or recording.2. The method of claim 1, the searching comprising: determining one ormore undedicated media streams likely to transmit the one or more mediaobjects; and monitoring the one or more undedicated media streams forthe one or more media objects.
 3. The method of claim 2, the monitoringcomprising: making a communications link to receive media contenttransmitted in the one or more undedicated media streams; receiving themedia content; reviewing the media content for the presence of the oneor more media objects.
 4. The method of claim 2, the monitoringcomprising: receiving a description of media content transmitted in theone or more undedicated media streams from the one or more undedicatedmedia streams; and reviewing the description of media content for areference of the one or more media objects.
 5. The method of claim 4,wherein the description of media content is received from the one ormore undedicated media streams.
 6. The method of claim 4, wherein thedescription of media content is received from a third party other thanthe one or more undedicated media streams.
 7. The method of claim 4,wherein the description of media content is received in advance of theone or more media objects being transmitted in the one or moreundedicated media streams.
 8. The method of claim 4, wherein thedescription of media content is received in real-time as the one or moremedia objects begins transmission in the one or more undedicated mediastreams.
 9. The method of claim 4, wherein the description of mediacontent is received in near-real-time as the one or more media objectsis being transmitted in the one or more undedicated media streams. 10.The method of claim 1, the searching comprises sending the request toone or more monitoring devices; and the locating comprises receiving,from at least one of the one or more monitoring devices, an indicationof the undedicated media stream transmitting the one or more mediaobjects.
 11. The method of claim 10, wherein at least one of the one ormore monitoring devices is affiliated with at least one of the one ormore undedicated media streams.
 12. The method of claim 1, the makingavailable comprising: formatting the copy of the one or more mediaobjects for presentation to the remote user device according to one ormore formatting rules; and presenting the formatted copy to the remoteuser device.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or moreformatting rules are specified by the remote user device.
 14. The methodof claim 12, further comprising determining the location of the remoteuser, and wherein the one or more formatting rules are based upon thelocation of the remote user.
 15. The method of claim 14, furthercomprising determining usage rights of the remote user based on thelocation of the remote user, and wherein the one or more formattingrules are further based upon the usage rights.
 16. The method of claim1, further comprising determining the location of the remote user,wherein the one or more undedicated media streams searched are limitedbased on the location of the remote user.
 17. The method of claim 16,further comprising determining usage rights of the remote user based onthe location of the remote user, and wherein the one or more undedicatedmedia streams searched are further limited based on the usage rights.18. The method of claim 1, further comprising buffering the one or moreundedicated media streams.
 19. A computer-implemented system presentingrequested content, gathered by a network-based server, to a remote userdevice, comprising: a user communication module connected to a networkfor receiving, from a remote user device connected to said network, arequest for a media object; a media location module, in communicationwith said user communication module, for searching one or moreundedicated media streams and locating an undedicated media streamtransmitting said media object on said network; a recording module, incommunication with said media location module, for recording a copy ofsaid media object from said media stream; and a user presentationmodule, in communication with said recording module, for presenting saidcopy of said media object to said remote user; wherein said medialocation module triggers said recording module upon locating said mediaobject in said media stream; and wherein said remote user device doesnot need to be connected to said computer-implemented system or saidnetwork during the execution of said media location module or saidrecording module.
 20. The system of claim 19, wherein the media locationmodule determines one or more undedicated media streams likely totransmit the media object and monitors the one or more undedicated mediastreams for the media object.
 21. The system of claim 20, wherein themedia location module monitors by making a communications link toreceive media content transmitted in the one or more undedicated mediastreams, receiving the media content, and reviewing the media contentfor the presence of the media object.
 22. The system of claim 20,wherein the media location module monitors by receiving a description ofmedia content transmitted in the one or more undedicated media streamsfrom the one or more undedicated media streams and reviewing thedescription of media content for a reference of the media object. 23.The system of claim 22, wherein the description of media content isreceived from the one or more undedicated media streams.
 24. The systemof claim 22, wherein the description of media content is received from athird party other than the one or more undedicated media streams. 25.The system of claim 22, wherein the description of media content isreceived in advance of the media object being transmitted in the one ormore undedicated media streams.
 26. The system of claim 22, wherein thedescription of media content is received in real-time as the mediaobject begins transmission in the one or more undedicated media streams.27. The system of claim 22, wherein the description of media content isreceived in near-real-time as the media object is being transmitted inthe one or more undedicated media streams.
 28. The system of claim 22,the media location module sends the request to one or more monitoringdevices and receives, from at least one of the one or more monitoringdevices, an indication of the undedicated media stream transmitting themedia object.
 29. The system of claim 28, wherein at least one of theone or more monitoring devices is affiliated with at least one of theone or more undedicated media streams.
 30. The system of claim 22,wherein the user presentation module formats the copy of the mediaobject for presentation to the user according to one or more formattingrules and presents the formatted copy to the remote user.
 31. The systemof claim 30, wherein the one or more formatting rules are specified bythe remote user.
 32. The system of claim 30, wherein the one or moreformatting rules are specified by one or more usage rights.
 33. A systemfor presenting requested content, gathered by a network-based server, toa remote user device, comprising: a remote user device; a network; oneor more undedicated media streams; and a server; wherein the remote userdevice sends triggering information directed towards a media object tothe server over the network, the server monitors the one or moreundedicated media streams for triggers based on the triggeringinformation, the server records the media object upon finding a trigger,and the server makes the media object available to the remote userdevice.
 34. A system for presenting requested content, gathered by anetwork-based server, to a remote user device, comprising: a firstremote user device; a network; one or more undedicated media streams; aserver; and a second remote user device; wherein the first remote userdevice sends triggering information directed towards a media object tothe server over the network, the server monitors the one or moreundedicated media streams for triggers based on the triggeringinformation, the server records the media object upon finding a trigger,and the server makes the media object available to the second remoteuser device.
 35. A computer-readable medium with instructions containedthereon, said instructions instructing a computer to: receive, from aremote user connected to a network, a request for a media object; searchone or more undedicated media streams; locate an undedicated mediastream transmitting the media object; record a copy of the media objectfrom the undedicated media stream; and make the copy of the media objectavailable to a remote device of the remote user; wherein the remote useris not required to stay connected to the network while locating orrecording.